ANAHEIM, Calif. — Yacht rock isn’t about flaunting a fancy boat. With shades and smooth tunes, yacht rock is about owning an attitude.
“It’s more about the vibe than it is owning a yacht,” said Phillip Daniel, frontman of Yächtley Crëw, in a recent phone interview. “More than anything, it’s about the lifestyle and feeling good, with a Piña colada or a Mai Tai in your hand, just enjoying life and making good memories.”
Yächtley Crëw is a seven-piece tribute act. Dressed in nautical suits and captain’s hats, they perform ‘70s and ‘80s soft rock, also known as yacht rock, including hits from the catalogs of Kenny Loggins, Christopher Cross, Hall & Oates, the Michael McDonald-era Doobie Brothers, Toto and more.
Although their sold-out shows haven’t yet translated to purchasing a yacht of their own; the group has frequently been invited to curate peak ambiance on the luxurious boats that oft tow the rich and famous.
Yacht rock, a genre that sounds like a clever and slightly ironic playlist on Spotify, wasn’t coined until 2005 and didn’t get its own SiriusXM station until about a decade later. As the HBO film, “Music Box: Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary” chronicles, the term was first introduced by actors J.D. Ryznar and Hunter Stair in their online mockumentary, “Yacht Rock.” The two were avid visitors of record stores like the now-shuttered O.G. Amoeba Music on Sunset Boulevard and would often comb through discount dollar record bins where they noticed many of their favorites had overlapping musician credits.
This led to the decision to produce an amusing retelling of the albums and the musicians that contributed to the creation of yacht rock in Southern California. The web series was satirical, often cheesy, but informative and appreciative of what was previously known as adult-oriented rock, West Coast sound, or more commonly, soft rock of the ‘70s and ‘80s. In 12 hilarious episodes, “Yacht Rock” follows the fictional lives and careers of musicians Loggins, Cross, Hall & Oates, McDonald and other prominent stars.
The “Music Box: Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary,” streaming on Max, delves further (and more accurately) into the history of the genre, including commentary from the real-life versions of these musicians and those who grew up to love the music, like the Roots’ Questlove, Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino and Thundercat. The film also features shots of a sold-out live performance of Yächtley Crëw at the Grove of Anaheim.
David said the band members were interviewed for the documentary, but their interviews and other clips of yacht rock heavyweights didn’t make the final cut.
“We were just honored to have our footage shown and a nod of the hat,” Daniel said. “I appreciated that they focused so much on the original artists and history. Now anyone just learning about yacht rock will have this awesome resource to give them the backstory of what these artists created and why this music has this resurgence of energy and enthusiasm.”
Like most music genres, there is a polarization between fans and artists regarding what can be categorized as yacht rock and even using the term itself. Director of the HBO film Garret Price found that out when he called up Steely Dan’s Donald Fagan for an interview about the genre, and he responded by cursing him out and hanging up.
“Oh, yacht rock,” Fagen is heard saying in the film. “Well, I tell you what. Why don’t you go (expletive) yourself?”
There is even a website dubbed “ Yacht or Nyacht?” where essential songs such as the Doobie Brothers’ “What a Fool Believes” is ranked as the most yacht rock while the Eagles’ “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” is ranked the least.
A portion of the documentary discusses how the genre fell out of the mainstream, thanks in part to the new wave visuals dominating MTV in the ‘80s alongside other emerging and popular genres. After the rise of music videos, the era of yacht rock seemed to be over, leaving only a caricature in its wake, rife with Hawaiian shirts, gimmicky boats and Tiki umbrellas.
